Down Along the Barrel of a Gun
by KodiakkeMax
Summary: 1st season snippet. "It was a long moment of breathing and bodies, and the view down along the barrel of a gun."


Down Along the Barrel of a Gun  
by KodiakkeMax   
  
  
Summary: It was a long moment of breathing and bodies, holding hands and the view down along the barrel of a gun.   
Author Notes: Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine. This one's for Shrift, Nestra, the BBQ, and all the other archivists who need a little comfort in their lives.   
Story Notes: Snippet A. Taking place 1st season, sometime between "Through the Looking Glass" and "A Bug's Life". I don't know what h/c really is, but perhaps this might qualify on some levels.   
Disclaimer: The characters, the universe, and the concept: not mine. I use lovingly and put 'em back where I find them.   
  
  
*   
  
"Frell."   
  
The muffled yelp made him turn, concerned. "Aeryn, maybe you shouldn't--"   
  
"I have things to do. If this frelling valve would just--!"   
  
The exclamation was lost in liquid cursing.   
  
"Yeah. Like heal." John restrained himself from going over. The last time he'd done that, she'd hit him. Next time, he promised himself, he would duck faster. "I can take care of overhauling your Prowler."   
  
She didn't stop trying to turn the valve, both hands hidden in the guts of the engine. "After you're finished doing that."   
  
"It doesn't take that long to wring out these xantha coil cables."   
  
"We can't afford any down time," she rebutted. "My Prowler is our only offensive capability."   
  
A different way of saying no. She was getting creative after the last two answers, which had been a simple and withering no. He turned back to his job.   
  
They worked together in silence for another half hour, each on their designated end of the maintenance bay. He was carefully pinning out the cables, listening for the correct harmonics through the higher frequency range. She grunted slightly as she oiled gears and checked gaskets, fumbling around inside the engine compartment of her Prowler.   
  
When she pulled herself out from underneath the ship, using only her good hand, he didn't offer to help. When she propped herself up against the wall, he didn't stop wringing the last cable. Carefully watched her for a few moments, peripheral vision. She wouldn't have been so unguarded if he'd been staring at her openly, and he never would have seen her face as she tried to flex the fingers on her right hand.   
  
He put down the diagnostic tool he called a multimeter. "Does it still hurt?"   
  
"Yes." Her voice told him she didn't want to think about it. The strained edge and that stiff upper lip told him it was already too much on her mind.   
  
He looped the last xantha coil wire and began storing it. Now he looked at her. "Did you go ask Zhaan for anything to help?"   
  
"This is ridiculous." She stared at her hand like it was a stray dog she was considering kicking. "If we could just get to a Diagnosian, or any halfway civilised medical facility, it would be fixed in no time."   
  
She'd managed not to emphasise "civilised". There was a time that emphasis came automatically. Back when that word still meant *Peacekeeper*, and Moya's crew was *them*.   
  
"Fixed? You make yourself sound like a machine. You're flesh and blood, Aeryn, you broke a hell of a lot of bones in there. It takes time to heal."   
  
She stared at him, her hand curling, uncurling, a strange creature crawling awkwardly on her lap. "John, it's only a few broken bones. Nothing more than a nuisance."   
  
"Aeryn, it's brok--" He stopped cleaning, straightened up. This wasn't just inoculations, prevention to the nth degree. "Wait a minute. Are you telling me you guys know how to fix broken bones instantly? Like Star Trek? Wave a tricorder over it, feel a warm spot, and that's it? You're healed?"   
  
"What do they do on your world?"   
  
"Reset it, wrap it. Take two aspirin and call in the morning, charge you an arm and a leg. The good ones, of course." He shrugged. "All they can do."   
  
Her face twisted, but if it was because of his world's country bumpkin ways, she didn't say it aloud. Getting better at not dissing Terra. That or she was really hurting.   
  
She was still stretching her hand, a strange cat-like movement: flex the fingers out, almost stiffly; curl them back together. He could only imagine how the small bones of her fingers were splintering, rough edges grinding together as she moved. How the ligaments, sliding across the broken shards in her crushed hand, were ripping and tearing on the micro level, weakening an already damaged structure. "You shouldn't do that," he said mildly.   
  
"It's habit," she replied, her voice curt. "Like that thing you do with your finger."   
  
"What thing?"   
  
"You know." She gestured with her good hand, bringing it up to her mouth. "Like this." Demonstrated chewing on the pad of her thumb, tilting her head slightly to one side. "You do it a lot."   
  
He nearly asked her what she was doing, staring at his mouth, but caught himself just in time. Learning, even if slowly, when to dodge and duck. "It's a habit," he temporized. "Been doing it ever since I can remember. But not when I'm hurting."   
  
"It doesn't hurt like that."   
  
"So how does it hurt?"   
  
"It doesn't. Matter." Her fingers were purpling before his eyes, but still she didn't stop.   
  
"It can't be a habit. I've never seen you do it before."   
  
"That's because I've never been like this--" Her voice broke, and she flung out her broken hand, cracked it against the floor in anger. "Frell!"   
  
"Aeryn!" He threw himself at her, grabbed her hand before she could hit the floor again. "What the hell are you doing?"   
  
Her lips were white around the edges. "Nothing that should matter!"   
  
"You think this doesn't matter?" He was crouched over her, and the words growled low in his throat. "Well, it does! Okay? It does. So what am I supposed to do, Aeryn?"   
  
"Nothing!"   
  
"Aeryn." She was trembling underneath his hands, wouldn't look into his eyes. "Baby, talk to me."   
  
"I'm just -- not used to this, all right?"   
  
"Aeryn." He held her wrist locked in a tight grip in one hand, tried to tilt a finger underneath her chin to make her face him. She dodged, and they played the game for a few minutes while he gritted his teeth and her movements became jerkier. Finally, patiently, he won. Time and patience. "C'mon. Tell me. What is it? What's going on?"   
  
She looked at him, and her eyes shone with moisture. Almost-tears. "You'll think it's foolish."   
  
"You think I'm foolish all the time. But I put up with you anyway." He smiled and unlocked his fingers. Rubbing light, small circles against the skin of her wrist where he had banded her before. "Try me."   
  
"I--." She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders. Facing death or fate, still the consummate soldier. "I woke up this morning and reached for my pistol. To holster it. I -- I forgot. I reached for it as I normally would."   
  
"You banged your hand."   
  
"I dropped my pistol. It fell out of my grip. Clattered on the floor." She closed her eyes. "I -- it's like a dream I used to have, when I was smaller. I wasn't able to hold it properly, like I was taught. I was too weak. Always too weak." She clenched her hand, the good one. "It shouldn't matter, it's just a stupid frelling dream--"   
  
Not only when she was little. John remembered. Pilot had told him what happened while he'd been playing with the blue people on the moon, the Delvians in their Seek. Almost a cycle ago now, lots of shit in between, but John remembered Pilot's words. How Aeryn dropped her rifle on the floor of the hangar bay and became frantic. Scared frozen. Not that John had seen that part. What he saw, what he remembered, was her right hand resting on her gun, riding the butt, for at least two days after. How she'd tackled the job of learning to completely disassemble and reassemble the rifle. Not just the standard field-stripping, but   
the full armoury job.   
  
"We'll find an inhabited system soon. We'll ask around, get you a doctor."   
  
"I know. I know that. I just can't seem to--" She stared down at her bad hand, flexing it. Out, then curling it in, and the bones jutted up through skin at each movement. "I can't seem to feel it."   
  
"Can you practise your holstering skills with your other hand?"   
  
"I'm as good a shot."   
  
That wasn't the point. She had dropped her gun. Scared herself, and now she couldn't let the fear go.   
  
His hand brushed through her hair, soothing her like he would his sisters. Just touch, simple, comforting, not demanding. She never let him do this. Get this close. Except that one time. Something he remembered when he saw her walking down Moya's corridors. Something he dreamed about, occasionally, and woke up reaching for.   
  
He slowly sank beside her, bracing his back against the wall, angled towards her. Turned her broken hand palm down, still massaging her wrist with his thumb. Warmed her fingers with his, careful not to twist the bones. Her fingers twitched, stretched. He could feel her flesh pulp and bulge underneath his, and tried not to grab her, make her stop. "You probably shouldn't."   
  
"I can't -- I can't help it." She didn't look directly at him, but he could hear remnants of the dream in her voice. Suddenly had a vision of her in her room, staring down at the floor and the pulse pistol that slipped so easily through her hands. What had that felt like, that moment of realization? This was Aeryn, the woman with the way of the gun. Who was she if she couldn't even hold her own pulse pistol?   
  
"Teddy bear," he whispered aloud.   
  
"What?"   
  
"It's a--" He bit down on the word *toy* just in time. That concept would translate all too easily. "It's like . . . it's like my p-suit. I don't need it on a lot of the worlds we go on, but I still keep it. Wear it. Reminds me of who I am."   
  
"A Peacekeeper is never without her weapon."   
  
"From what I've seen, a Peacekeeper *is* a weapon. The gun? It's just an accessory."   
  
She smiled at that, and he felt good. It was her first smile since she'd been hurt, two days ago, covering their escape from Rygel's gambling buddies.   
  
Her smile melted away in a sigh, and if she'd been an Earth girl, she would have laid her cheek on his shoulder, leaned in to him. That was the script he knew, how comfort was asked for, offered and accepted. Not Aeryn Sun, though. She sighed and he muddled on through, and when she blinked away a tear, he wanted to reach out and wipe it away. Didn't. She wouldn't understand that either. He'd learned that much of her language.   
  
What would she understand?   
  
"Here," he said after a moment, and reached out, snagging his fingers around the loops of her trousers, inching her slightly so her back was to him and she was bracketed by his knees. She twisted to watch him, suspicion lining her face and stiffening her body, but she didn't say or do anything to stop him. She could have, even with that broken hand. His own hands were slow as they drifted down her side; his right hovered cautiously over her holster. Asking in his own way, in a way she probably understood. Asking not if she would allow him, but if she would deny him.   
  
When she didn't, he unsnapped her pistol, fumbling once with the unfamiliar lock mechanism. Drew the gun out gently, the alien ridges of the grip strange to his palm, an almost-fit when he wasn't buffered by fear or anger or humiliation. He reached across her to pass the weapon to his left hand.   
  
"Here," he murmured, his right arm curling around hers. He was careful when he cradled her hand, not wanting to jar the bones from their precarious alignment. Guided her, cupped her gently around the gun, folding her fingers over the grip while his left hand shifted to support the butt, their combined weight. "Just hold on."   
  
She tensed, the slightest catch in her breath, and he felt the tremble through her arm.   
  
"Steady," he breathed into the shell of her ear. "Let me. I'll carry the weight. Just feel it."   
  
As he did: his hand spread over hers, steadying the weight and balancing the orientation of the large pistol. Her fist fitting against his palm so easily, the ridges of her knuckles a warm and comfortable grip, a better fit than the moldings. His fingers lacing easily along the closed grooves of hers, just barely enough to hold her while his left hand took up the weight. He raised the gun, their arms stretching in unison as he sighted down her shoulder. His skin brushed hers, the fine hairs on her arm tickling the inside of his elbows. Her shoulder blades dug into his chest, and he tucked in his chin over the groove where her shoulder and neck joined.   
  
"There," he whispered along her jaw. "Feel it? Right there."   
  
Her breathing eased, and he could feel her heartbeat slow underneath his chest. One deep sigh -- his arms spread slightly as she grew in his embrace, closed around to hold her as she sank into herself.   
  
It was a long moment of breathing and bodies, holding hands and the view down along the barrel of a gun.   
  
He finally lowered the pistol to rest between their outstretched legs. Let it dangle from the cradle of their interwoven hands, their elbows propped somewhere between his knees and hers. Neither one of them moved except to settle comfortably, to move elbows so neither was poked, shifting until they lay just so and sharp edges didn't dig into soft places.   
  
He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, held on. The pulse pistol was warmed by their joined touch, the hard grip softened by her hands. He held on to her, to the gun through her, and he let himself go, let himself be lulled by the sound of her breathing, the subliminal hum of Moya's engines and the gentle whirring of DRDs.   
  
*   
  
Fin 


End file.
